General

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Peter Sidor — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:03:14 GMT

The problem with wikipedia is the idea of it, not the particular case. A book/journal/etc. stays the same and has the same one author. Wikipedia is neither a record nor valid reference nor impartial. That limits it strictly to "WTF is an X?" situations. Basically, it's the same as Google.

A journal or book is not impartial either - and its references can be similarly valid or not. Of course, Wikipedia changes and that can be hard to get used to, because it is an entirely different medium. That doesn't change its usefulness to a vast number of people, it is in fact one of its major advantages, that it can be dynamically changed and improved.

(For the record, there are projects based on Wikipedia selecting 'stable' versions of important pages. Try to lookup one of those - you may find it more to your liking.)

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Caley McKibbin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:25:19 GMT

The problem with wikipedia is the idea of it, not the particular case. A book/journal/etc. stays the same and has the same one author. Wikipedia is neither a record nor valid reference nor impartial. That limits it strictly to "WTF is an X?" situations.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Peter Sidor — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:42:00 GMT

One good lesson Wikipedia teaches is that information is never impartial, or automatically trustworthy. Accept that there may problems, and be amazed that the quality on general articles is very high. It is not without reason compared to "regular" encyclopedias in quality and far beyond them in quantity of topics.

But if we just have to bash Wikipedia here, let the classic say: "I wouldn’t trust Wikipedia with the truth any more than I would trust the government with my money." :)

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Caley McKibbin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:08:35 GMT

I find tons of good information on Wikipedia and from other parts of the internet.

How would you know that it is good? It could be like some parts of the entry for AE.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

William — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:18:53 GMT

I was mostly joking, I actually consider wikipedia a great spring board and use it almost like search engine. I still don't think I would call it an encyclopedia though, as much as it is a reflection of computer culture and mass amounts of almost unfiltered info comming in.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Libertyandlife — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:08:02 GMT

The article is hilarious, but not inaccurate.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

I. Ryan — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:01:18 GMT

Caley McKibbin:

A large repository of disknowledge. Hm. Sounds a lot like the internet.

I find tons of good information on Wikipedia and from other parts of the internet.

Dondoolee:

Yeah, wikipedia has gone over to the tards

You are making it sound like Wikipedia is centralized, which means we can fault the entire thing for a couple sarcastic articles. Well, Wikipedia isn't a monolith; it has good parts, and it has bad parts. The distribution of the good and bad articles isn't random. It is systematic. In some fields, the articles tend to be useless. In others, they tend to be great. If you know what Wikipedia is good at, it can be a great tool; but, if you don't, if you just aimlessly surf it, you might hit a particularly bad patch, and conclude, without justification, that the whole thing is worthless.

I consider Wikipedia to be one of the greatest innovations ever, and I use it almost everyday. I don't understand why so many people attack it, and I especially don't understand why I also find hate for it in this sort of forum. Wikipedia is a marvel of decentralized order. It still amazes me even nowadays, when I step back and think about it. Before it came around, I guarantee that most people wouldn't even think that it would be possible, if you were to ask them. I even meet people nowadays, who, though they haven't spent much time getting to know what they are criticizing, or seeing it in action, tell me that it is worthless, because anyone can edit it, and what sort of misinformation do you expect, when any idiot can change whatever they want!

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Caley McKibbin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:01:26 GMT

A large repository of disknowledge. Hm. Sounds a lot like the internet.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Doubtus — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 02:35:24 GMT

Regardless of how much people criticize wiki, I think its one of the best things ever to happen on the internet. Its just terribly convenient to have such a large repository of knowledge and information on pretty much every topic you can think of, whether or not you think its "valuable".

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Azure — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:20:47 GMT

I shudder to think of a fanfiction wikipedia. "Today's Featured Article: The Forbidden Love Affair of Megatron and Sailor Moon. But Will Darth Vader Object To This Betrayal?"

A "dude humour" wiki would probably be hilarious, though. The only trouble would be deciding whether ridiculously over the top masculinity, frat boys, surfers or stoners would make a funnier basis for the whole thing.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Azure — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:09:36 GMT

I think, regardless of whether you are a religious fundamentalist or an atheist fanatic there's something deeply, deeply, deeply wrong with an encyclopedia where an article on a creature from a children's cartoon is longer than the article on God.

Easy. In our culture, cartoons are more important than unanswerable philosophical questions. I say this is an improvement.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

William — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:03:48 GMT

And another one for the rap song "regulators"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulate_(song)

Yeah, wikipedia has gone over to the tards

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

Praetyre — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:00:41 GMT

I shudder to think of a fanfiction wikipedia. "Today's Featured Article: The Forbidden Love Affair of Megatron and Sailor Moon. But Will Darth Vader Object To This Betrayal?"

A "dude humour" wiki would probably be hilarious, though. The only trouble would be deciding whether ridiculously over the top masculinity, frat boys, surfers or stoners would make a funnier basis for the whole thing.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

William — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:01:28 GMT

Uh, either that, or they were just kidding.

I really hope they weren't kidding, id doubt it, but it's fun to dream. Still though, it's odd that the article has been allowed to maintain that style. It may be only a matter of time before "dude humour" and fanfic articles takes over wikipedia.

Re: Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

z1235 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:36:09 GMT

Apparently not too many knitting or pumkin-chunkin aficionados here. A lot of believers in the subjectivity of values, though.